Content Richness: It provides all of the chunky goodness I was expecting from a pickup with the name
Dominion. I also enjoyed the accented mids. I always like to boost the mids a bit on my rig, but I don't need to with this one. The
Dominion has an extremely punchy response, but is also smooth and warm. The highs are very singing and sweet while still retaining the low punch. These will be available in the typical
DiMarzio color choices, and I love my black/purple version. I always use tons of gain when recording and playing - so this baby fit right in with my sound tastes. I love that the mids are higher than most humbuckers and I don't have to adjust amp or mixer dials to find the sweet spot - it has a natural sweet spot! I love this pickup so much, that I'm going to snatch up some more when they hit the market and dump them in some of my other
Ibanez guitars. I'm really anxious to try out the neck version of the Dominion. A full audio review will be available on the Product Reviews page of my blog
here. // 10
Style: It's built to last - just like all other
DiMarzios. It will last forever! // 10
Impression: The UPS truck just dropped this little monster yesterday, Feb 3 2012 - straight from
Larry DiMarzio. They are not available to purchase yet, but I was able to get one to do a review. Luckily, I was able to get a purple/black version. I quickly installed this in my
Ibanez RG-760. After adjusting the pickup height to my liking - I immediately began to put the Dominion through it's paces. I ran the guitar into my
Ibanez SD9 distortion pedal and into my mixing board. The first thing I wanted to do was to crank it and go heavy... And boy, that's what this baby is! I could not get enough of it. It is nice and heavy with a great mid boost. In fact, it has more mids than most pickups.
I immediately fell in love with the
Dominion - it is my new best buddy. It just begs to be played heavy. I couldn't resist chugging on the intro to "
Balls To The Wall". Then, I went through some old
Dokken tunes, "
When Heaven Comes Down" and "
Kiss Of Death". After getting my fix of the amazing crunch this pickup delivers, I was curious to see how it performed in the clean department. I ran the
RG-760 straight into my mixer and added a bit of chorus and reverb. Again - I was pleasantly surprised. The
Dominion not only does what one would expect with a name like that, but also cleans up very nicely. After trying out the clean side of the
Dominion, I just had to get back to the crunchy goodness this thing is made for. This time, I tried it through my
Wampler Plextortion pedal and then my
Wampler SLOstortion. I was not disappointed!
I can coax that chunky
Metallica chugga chugga chugga out of it, too. The best mix I came up with was to adjust my mixer EQ settings to: highs - 2 o'clock, mid - flat, low - 3 o'clock, and added a touch of reverb. Bottom line? This pickup sounds like it was wound just for me! It sounds like a combination of a
DiMarzio Tone Zone and
Breed all in one. It has that great bottom end of a
Tone Zone and the warm smoothness of a
Breed. I've been a
DiMarzio fan for many moons, and have several different
DiMarzio combos in all 36 of my
Ibanez guitars - this one is at the top of my list. I swear - it sounds like the pickup I would have had custom made! // 10
!
